Ring return 27 and ring return 6 through TheRingFinders! Friday evening as I was coming home from metal detecting in Daytona with my friend Dick I got a phone call from Todd who is from Orlando who stated his wife had lost her wedding rings at Flagler beach the day before and could I help find them.
Todd’s wife Ann Marie took the children to the beach and as she was putting sun tan lotion on everyone she decided to put her wedding rings and a third ring into her sons bathing suit pocket for safe keeping until she was done. However she got distracted and before she knew it the boys were boogie boarding in the waves. Twenty minutes later she remembered the rings and called her son out of the water only to see both of his pockets now inside out, the rings gone.

Hysterical she immediately called her husband who got right online to research how to find a lost ring in the ocean when he came across The Ring Finders site. Initially he called someone from Daytona to help but that person was in Chemo Therapy at the time and could not come but he immediately gave Todd instructions for his wife to take exact notes of where they were on the beach. Todd and Ann Marie were astonished that someone in that type of treatment would take almost an hour talking with them to help them get the rings back. It’s important to know what time the rings were lost, what was the tide at that time, how far out were the boys, where exactly were the boys. He told her how to carefully take notes on the location and to document them while he would try to find someone else to go search. That member contacted a metal detecting group in the area who sent out two people to meet Ann Marie at the same spot but after hours of searching they could not find the rings.

Todd then tried my number. It just so happened that I was about to be passing Flagler Pier on my way home so after getting detailed descriptions of exactly where they lost the rings Dick and I decided we had about 30-45 minutes of light left before the sun set and though we were already sore from the two plus hour hunt in Daytona we decided to stop and search. As the light faded we could not find the rings.
I called Todd and told him we had not found them but explained that if he could meet us at Flagler beach the next morning at 7 a.m. for the low tide we’d search again. Todd excitedly agreed. The next morning we arrived at the beach at 6:50 and geared up. Dick started searching in the water right away and as I was gearing up Todd and Ann Marie pulled into the parking area with their two boys.

After the usual greetings and then a detailed repeating of the story of how the rings were lost I got to searching. We worked together in the same area as the family watched. I concentrated on the wet sand as Dick worked in the water. One hour passed and no rings, then two. Our friend Jim showed up to detect with his detector and joined us in the search. As we dragged our long handled shovels behind us we covered the beach, laying a trail to show ourselves where we’d been.

The tide was now coming in and still no rings. Jim and I stopped a moment to talk and just then Dick heard that great gold sound with his modified Minelab Excalibur out in the water and found the engagement ring. Our signal was that if someone found one of the rings they’d raise their scoop in the air to get the others attention as all three rings were likely in the same spot and it’s important once you find one not to move. Dick raised his scoop but nobody saw as we were talking. After a couple minutes of chatting I finally turned around to continue to detect and saw Dick waving his scoop in the air.

I walked quickly over to Dick and with a great big smile he showed me a beautiful engagement ring. I then stuck my scoop down into the sand for him to use as a reference point as the waves rolled over the area and watched him grid around it. I went over to the Todd and told him the engagement ring was found. He seemed shocked and happy! Next I walked up to the car by the road and there was Ann Marie, with her bible, praying in the car for the rings safe return. When I told her we’d found the engagement ring she cried and hugged me for a long time!. These moments I love! We went back out to the water where Dick was just finding the second ring that said FAITH. Soon after that one came up he found the wedding band as everyone watched.

This was one of my favorite returns because of the sheer joy the entire family showed as each ring went back on Ann Maries fingers. The son who had the rings come out of his pocket had told me he prayed at dinner the night before that the rings would be found. We know that God does not stop the rings from being lost and I don’t believe God would physically move the rings to be under my coil but I firmly believe God can give me the thoughts of “Yes go look for that”, or “Maybe you should go further North.” But even if those thoughts don’t come the mere fact that we do the right thing by looking for the rings and then returning them shows people God’s kind of love. We were created in His image. It’s up to us to choose to show it.